Find You Here
by The Carrot
Summary: Of Skates, Safe Places and Sad Thoughts. Set After 'Behind the Blue Line' Jules meets up with Sam at a rink and they have a small conversation.


Find You Here (Your Place)

Sam x Jules I know this has been done so many times, but I still can't help writing about it. I don't own Flashpoint. –sadface-

--

It wasn't the arena he wanted to be in.

He couldn't be in that one.

It was being destroyed.

Flattened.

For a new glass building.

No, it wasn't the same rink.

It didn't hold the same memories.

It didn't hold the same meaning.

Not for him anyway.

And it hadn't for Darren either.

Sam chuckled under his breath as a ten year old boy shot past him on a pair of ratty old hockey skates. The sniper lifted his arms out of the way as a group of more children shot past him, dividing around his body to speed off after their friend.

Shaking his head he glanced down at the ice beneath his own skates. Blue line, white ice, red line, white ice… blue line. He skidded to a stop against the side board his eyes trained on the last blue line. It had been around there… He could almost see the exact spot where he had been standing when Ed had taken his shot. Taking Darren out… and with him, his hopes of saving the one person he should have been able to.

He pushed off the side, dodging people as he sped up trying to leave the images of Darren's cold corpse behind. Despite everyone telling him that, 'that you can't save everyone,' Sam knew they were wrong. He hadn't been trying to save everybody. He had been trying to save a kid… a kid who had been through hell and back. Sam knew what that was like better then anyone. But Darren was dead now; because he had failed him.

He failed.

And Darren had given up.

'_I'm tired.'_

The guy had wanted to die.

'_He applied to go back to active duty.'_

One way or another.

'_He was declared mentally unfit._'

'Mentally unfit, ha!' he thought to himself, roughly skidding to a stop sending a wave of snow onto the board, cutting off a brown haired woman and her blonde friend beside her at the same time. Sam smiled at them sheepishly. "Sorry."

The two blushed, nodding as they skated off, muttering to each other. Glancing after them Sam cocked his head to one side thinking how nice it would be to be that normal; where a person cutting you off on skates is the only thing to make you upset and a smile is all it take to make it better.

"Hey, thought I'd find you here."

Blue eyes shot open as Sam tried to whip around at the familiar voice. However all he managed was to slip and fall, landing flat on his back, leaving him to stare up into warm brown eyes. "Jules?" he frowned feeling the cold seep into his back.

The female sniper smiled down at him. "What are you doing here anyway? I thought you hated winter sports?" She laughed holding out her hand to help Sam to his feet.

The sniper grimaced, getting up and brushing snow off of his jeans. "I… I was just looking for something." He muttered.

Jules looked over the man in front of her, glad that he was still there, next to her. They had been so close to losing him. He had thought that he didn't belong here with them. The sound of his voice when he said so, had chills running up her spine whenever she thought about it. Reaching out Jules took Sam's arm in her hand and pulled him into the slowly lessening crowd of people on the ice. "You want to talk about it?"

Sam shook his head at her offer. He didn't really want to share his thoughts about Darren. About how he had been just like the other man at one point and time; lost, hurt, and guilt ridden. Unwillingly though, the sniper found his mouth moving, forming words his brain felt like he shouldn't be sharing. Jules seemed to have that effect on him still.

"He went there in his mind to find peace when things got tough; but when he actually came home to find the piece of himself he left here… he couldn't get it back and he lost what was left of himself instead. His place was gone." He was speaking gibberish most likely; it was hard to convey the meaning of what he meant because it was something you had to experience yourself.

Brown eyes warmed as Sam spoke, Jules watching him carefully, looking for anything that would tell her how to help him. "His place?"

"The Godwin." The sniper nodded sticking his hands in his pockets. "When you can't sleep, when things go bad and you need to remember why exactly you just shot that child coming towards you. You go to your place. I think everybody's got one…The one place where life was good and you didn't have to worry about dying. You have to have a place like that; that you can find yourself in, or you'll slowly go crazy." Sam let his words trail off as an older couple skated past them hand in hand. He watched them go, a longing look in his eye and nearly jumped out of his skin when the woman next to him laced her arm through his.

Sam chuckled at the action. It wasn't romantic in anyway, but it was of comfort. Which was the last thing he thought he'd receive from anybody on the team, after he blurted out to Darren what he had done to 'Ben'. Ah, yes, Ben… Matt's middle name.

"So, where was your place?" Jules smirked bringing him back out of his thoughts. "Let me guess, shooting range? Bar full of hot women?"

He laughed under his breath. "Actually it was my mother's kitchen." At Jules shocked look he smiled widely. "What?"

"You were a mama's boy?" the brunette gave him a disbelieving look.

"Well she did raise me after all. The General was never home so it was just Mom and I, we spent most of our time together." He rolled his eyes at her amused expression shoving her slightly with his hip, but not enough to push her over or to force her arm away from his. "We moved around a lot back then, but we did spend quiet a few years in a military base in the Moroccan dessert. It was nice." Visions of the white and green kitchen took over the cold picture of cement and blood already in his mind. As it did, he felt the same relief he had felt back in Kandahar every time he thought of the little room that overlooked the town.

Jules watched his face relax, the action surprising her more then it should have. "You really did know that guy didn't you?"

Sam smirked ruefully. "More then you'll ever know." He muttered as the buzzer above their head rang, signalling them to get off the ice. Out of the corner of his eye Sam watched children racing to get one more lap in, parents calling them back, jackets in hand. Sighing heavily he let Jules arm go and the two officers made their way off the rink.

"Want to go grab a coffee?" Jules offered looking up into warm blue eyes.

Casting one last look over the rink and the smiling faces of the people in it Sam nodded. "Yeah, that sounds great."

-

It wasn't the Godwin arena.

That place was gone now.

But there was still this place.

It didn't hold all the special things that the big beige building had, had…

But this one still had a life yet to live.

With adults, children and peewee hockey teams.

Events would be held here that would make memories for others.

No, it wasn't the same.

But it would do.

-

"So, you said you were looking for something. Did you find it?"

"…No. But I think other people might."

-

It would be a happy place for other people to come back to.

--

_ Just a random piece of thing I found whilst going through my Flashpoint folder… yeah, I have so many Flashpoint stories it gets its own folder. Hahah…hah…aha… hur hur hur..

Anyway, the line I really wanted to be in the story never made it in; "You'll end up finding you here." Oh well.

Thanks for Reading!

Also, I have inadvertently written more to the Leaving Prompt set I did, if any one wants me to post it up I will. Just thought I'd offer.


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